Worship Center Prepares To Open Its Doors To Faithful

September 09, 1989|By MICHAEL S.C. CLAFFEY Staff Writer

GLOUCESTER — On Sunday the faithful and the curious will at last have a chance to view the inside of the new Lighthouse Worship Center, a huge new sanctuary that commuters have watched rise next to Route 17 for the past 15 months.

Visitors may gape when they enter through the doors of the eight-sided building and catch a glimpse of the expansive interior.

The 30,000-square-foot worship center, located at Ordinary, will seat about 1,700, said pastor Scott Erickson, with room for 1,000 people on the main floor and space for another 700 in the balcony. The new center replaces a building that seats about 500 that the congregation outgrew in just five years.

He is particularly pleased that he will no longer have to hold two and three services to accommodate the entire congregation, which he said numbers about 1,500.

Erickson, 38, attributes the success of his church, which is a member of the Assemblies of God, to the strict following of the Bible. "I'm a Bible teacher," he said. "I preach the Bible and I teach the Bible. ... We study what God says about living and live by his answers to our questions."

Erickson said the church, which until last year was called the Gloucester Assembly of God, was on the verge of shutting down when he was named pastor in 1979. Founded in 1971, the church had only about 20 members when he was asked to "come up here and see what I could do."

At the time he was a part-time pastor at Calvary Assembly God in Hampton and also worked at a seafood business in Hampton owned by his wife's family. The church grew rapidly under his leadership and he became a full-time pastor five years ago. He now has four other pastors working with him. The church also has a school, Gloucester Christian Academy, which has about 75 students in kindergarten through ninth grade.

The Assemblies of God is one of the faster-growing church groups in the country, according to Arnold Lovell, a professor of evangelism at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond.

Lovell attributed the growth to the fact that the group has "planted churches in good places," and has set growth as a top priority. "They have made a conscious effort to grow," he said. "It is one of their prime reasons for existence."

That is in contrast to old mainline Protestant groups, Lovell said, such as Presbyterians and Methodists, which set growth as a lower priority.

Lovell said that part of the appeal of the Assemblies of God is that in an age of great moral ambiguity, "it is a strict church, with a well-defined understanding of right and wrong and good and evil."

He described the type of people joining the church as "a cross-section of people that are looking for that type leadership."

Erickson said his congregation consists of many young families, but that the fastest growing segment now is older retirees.

Erickson's goal is to continue reaching out to the many people in society he says are "unchurched," those who "are disillusioned or searching."

The dedication service will be held at 10 a.m. Sunday and will be performed by Howard Spruill, superintendent of the Potomac District of the Assemblies of God. Billy and Sarah Gaines, Christian musicians from Nashville, Tenn., will be performing at the service and at a concert at 6 p.m.

The $1.45 million church was designed and built by Commercial Builders of Kansas, in Wichita, which Erickson said is one of the major church builders in the country.

The financing was provided through the sale of church bonds, Erickson said, which were purchased by both members and non-members of the church.

The interior design was handled in house by church members. "I think people that want to get married here won't have trouble having a pretty wedding," said the pastor's wife, Bonnie.

Behind the pulpit, there is room for a 75-member choir. The oak pews are upholstered in lavender and the floor is carpeted in plush maroon.

"I think they'll really enjoy this," said Erickson of his flock, as he gave a tour of the new building along with his wife. "I think no one has a bad seat in the house."